Niarchos foundation and Renzo Piano team up again to build three new Greek hospitals

Stavros Niarchos Foundation and architect Renzo Piano whose Renzo Piano Building Workshop will be collaborating with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Health Initiative to build three new hospitals in Thessaloniki, Komotini and Sparta. Photo: SNF/Supplied

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Health Initiative working with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop have revealed designs for the building of three new hospitals in Greece namely at Thessaloniki, Komotini and Sparta.

It is not the first time the SNF has worked with Renzo Piano, the award winning Italian architect who designed the National library at the SNF Cultural Centre in central Athens. Mr Piano also designed the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Shard in London.

According to architectural website archdaily.com, the proposed University Paediatric Hospital in Thessaloniki will be the largest of the three hospitals and will be designed as campus that will provide tertiary paediatric services for all of northern Greece and secondary paediatric services for greater Thessaloniki. It will also serve as a national Referral Centre for Children and Adolescent Mental Health. The proposed hospital will also provide educational spaces for the medical faculty of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with research laboratories and training spaces for staff members and students.

The second hospital, the SNF General Hospital of Sparta will support health units and health centres in the region of Laconia. The hospital will replace the current General Hospital of Sparta and will combine with the hospital of Molai. The main building will three-storeys high and will emerge the surrounding park’s tree canopy.

As with the hospital designs in Thessaloniki and Komotini, the new hospital in Sparta trees will play an important part in the design features which will immerse a the buildings in the surrounding natural environment to promote a peaceful and calm environment for patients, visitors and staff.

The SNF General Hospital of Komotini will provide an improved secondary hub for eastern Macedonia and Thrace. It will replace the current Sismanogleio Hospital of Komotini which is one of Greece’s oldest hospitals. The three-storey building will be surrounded by 70,000 square metres of parkland.

Both wings of the hospital will be covered by a solar metallic steel canopy that will support solar panels that will produce up to 1.6 megawatts of renewable energy. At the same time the steel canopy will protect the building from the sun and provide a cover for technical installations on the roof.

All of the key clinical activities including operating rooms, laboratories and the emergency department will be on the ground level to receive natural daylight and offer views of the surrounding parklands.

The hospital will also utilise recycling material and resources that will reduce energy consumption. The hospital will not rely on the burning of fossil fuels for energy needs and will also rely on 30km of geothermal wells which will provide all of the heating and much of the cooling requirements for the hospital.

neoskosmos.com